>As this is a bit of a morality tale, how about the alternative group represents>selfishness and debauchery? We could just use the money to get Shorty laid>(assuming he can't arrange that himself at the saturday night Katoomba>meat-market)>

On 12/08/2012 stugang wrote:>All the moneys going toward "safer this" and "rescue that" - I was thinking>of evening it up a bit and donating toward something to make climbing a>bit more real - like the 70's ya know. How about a battery powered angle>grinder, that could spend alternate 6month stints at Macca's place and>then Araps at Eduardos. Possibly overkill as surely there are SDS grinder>attachment available at 1/4 the cost. >
Yep, this will be where my $100 goes.

> Regarding erosion at the base, I first climbed Exhibition Wall in 1996 and there was no cairn, but it was a reachy boulder problem to get going. I don't think it has eroded significantly since then, <10cm in 16yrs. So the "other 1.5m of erosion" must have happened in the first 17yrs (Ex. Wall established 1979ish?)........I call bullshit!

ODH, you really would do yourself a favour if you went and looked at the base of these climbs. Exhibition Wall now has a dirty great big cairn under the start which is needed to reach the starting holds.

If you broke the habit of a lifetime and thought for a second, it might occur to you that there was a drought for 8/9 years from 2000 onwards. (I'll go slowly for you on this.) Topsoil gets dried out and blown away in a drought. Especially on a path (er, as at the base of this climb) where people break up the dirt with their feet.

Your comments in relation to 1996 actually probably support the hypothesis that the ground might have eroded a bit since the 80s. Anyway, I am sure that some people will be along shortly to discuss... perhaps someone may even have some memory of the condition of the climb in the 80s.

> Sounds like (if I'm interpreting Wide-speak correctly) the bolts might have got the chop. I don't want to abandon the whole thing though. How about, if the retros are gone, someone raps in and clips the first bolt and we go from there?

Totally acceptable to me. I would hate to miss out on your spanking. I can't wait.

>If you broke the habit of a lifetime and thought for a second, it might occur to you that >there was a drought for 8/9 years from 2000 onwards. (I'll go slowly for you on this.) >Topsoil gets dried out and blown away in a drought. Especially on a path (er, as at the >base of this climb) where people break up the dirt with their feet.

Or alternatively, rain is the larger erosion hazard in regions such as Mt York where there's a reasonable vegetation cover, in which case the 10 year drought would mean lower rates of soil loss. *in general* wind erosion is generally pretty minor in and around the blueys, except at times when the veg coverage is reduced (e.g. during bushfires, or during ice ages when veg is punished by cold). The trampling effect is still very strong though.

On 12/08/2012 stugang wrote:>I dropped my prized first edition springless sticht plate off the top of>the watchtower a couple of years ago. I'm sure I'll be able to find another>- Rossco?>>Either that or a munter?

Stugang - I have an original (springless) stich plate (11mm + 9mm holes) that you can borrow for this purpose.

On 13/08/2012 Nick Clow wrote:>Wombly, FYI we are talking here about a dry and dusty path on which any>vegetation has long since passed away.
Drought leading to lack of vegetation followed by high rainfall and constant traffic throughout the whole last decade would result in fairly high erosion rates.
However, I don't think it sees as much traffic as around Snap, Crackle and Pop area? But I haven't been there for ages.

The ledge has dropped a tiny amount since 1980. Hardly enough to worry about. It's always been like that. The cairn comes and goes and increases / decreases depending on how lazy or self-righteous people are feeling. The last big one went into the concrete trackwork around the corner that the Council is paying for.
The route, on the other hand, has worn considerably. the holds up to the break are way thinner than they used to be.
Ralph's route is really just a direct start to EW. there used to be a 25? variant straight up where EW starts, done by accident by -------- (edit - all and sundry, apparently, from allegedly reliable source, who is appalled by all of our lack of knowledge). -----
G.

On 13/08/2012 technogeekery wrote:>On 12/08/2012 stugang wrote:>>I dropped my prized first edition springless sticht plate off the top>of>>the watchtower a couple of years ago. I'm sure I'll be able to find another>>- Rossco?>>>>Either that or a munter?>>Stugang - I have an original (springless) stich plate (11mm + 9mm holes)>that you can borrow for this purpose.

> Sounds like (if I'm interpreting Wide-speak correctly) the bolts might have got the chop. I don't want to abandon the whole thing though. How about, if the retros are gone, someone raps in and clips the first bolt and we go from there?

Just food for thought ODH - if you onsighted or did the route ground up with the first bolt-preclipped, then you would still actually be doing it in better style than 'headpointing' it.

On 13/08/2012 One Day Hero wrote:>I really want to hear from tnd about whether he's going to put his chocky>reputation on the line by publicly attempting to live up to his yabbering.>>What do you reckon, mate? You can onsight 22, can't you?

Don't drag me into this, shit for brains, just because you painted yourself into a corner. I don't feel the need to prove anything to anybody. That's called not being insecure.

Apart from that, I've got four more months of recovery from shoulder surgery before I'm allowed to lift anything heavier than 2kg with my left arm.

On 14/08/2012 davidn wrote:>So who is belaying and when is this happening? Sat 25th?>>I need another ASX conversion - are two headpoints worth a ground-up?> What's the rap inspection flash to ground-up ratio?

On 14/08/2012 tnd wrote:>Don't drag me into this, shit for brains, just because you painted yourself>into a corner. I don't feel the need to prove anything to anybody. That's>called not being insecure.>
I'm looking forward to this thing, the outcome doesn't matter. As someone wise once said to me "it's all about getting out there, and giving it a crack"

Hmmm, I reckon that writing on a website that you "can onsight substantially harder than 21" but then refusing to publicly do so sounds pretty insecure. I would suggest that "not being insecure" would have been better demonstrated by allowing uwhp50's implication to stand.

>Apart from that, I've got four more months of recovery from shoulder surgery>before I'm allowed to lift anything heavier than 2kg with my left arm.

So......you can't actually onsight anything anymore? What makes you so sure that you'll ever get back to where you were pre-injury? :)

>Have fun and don't splat yourself too hard on that slab.

What slab? Oh the mild angle change? Yeah, I think the hype about that was brought to you by the "1.5m of erosion in 30yrs" crowd.

On 14/08/2012 Nick Clow wrote:>>Just food for thought ODH - if you onsighted or did the route ground up>with the first bolt-preclipped, then you would still actually be doing>it in better style than 'headpointing' it.

I really should have a look at this route to see what the deal is. My understanding is that with the retrobolts it had potential for reasonable falls but no grounders (I'm hoping that the same goes with having the bolt at 10m preclipped)

As it's been made to sound, the gear before the first bolt is pretty shit, so a 10m groundfall is on the cards for a headpointed ascent. It's fuching ridiculous to try and establish an exchange rate between onsighting protected climbs and doing dangerous climbing after rehersal (although this seems to be the basis for stupid English grades)

Headpointing routes which offer serious injury is much more difficult than onsighting safe moves. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either suicidal or delusional.

Quite seriously, I would be far more impressed by a ground up ascent of this route - and that's either with the first bolt clipped or clipping the (now non-existent) 2 retro bolts - than by a 'headpoint' ascent without. You have to go above the gear, suss the line on lead, take falls on lead, find and place gear etc by going ground-up. You don't know if you can do the climb.

You avoid all these issues and take all the uncertainty out of the thing by toproping and sussing out the whole climb. You know what the moves are (intimately, probably) and that you can do them. In fact you could argue that headpointing is sport climbing without the bolts.

I don't deny that that UK-style headpoints can be super bold in themselves and highly-impressive - especially at the cutting edge, but that's not the question. The question is to do with comparing styles.

On 14/08/2012 Nick Clow wrote:>ODH, you are joking right?>>Quite seriously, I would be far more impressed by a ground up ascent of>this route - and that's either with the first bolt clipped or clipping>the (now non-existent) 2 retro bolts - than by a 'headpoint' ascent without.

I just don't understand that. I prefer to try to onsight safe routes, rather than dogging dangerous ones into submission................but I have a lot of respect for people who can execute difficult moves in a situation where failure will lead to serious injury. Despite the rehersal, they're still risking an awful lot more than someone with a bolt 1m below their feet.